Agostini, Krausz, L’Huillier Earn Nobel Prize in Physics for Work on Attosecond Pulses

Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in physics for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter. The work of the laureates has developed and enabled new tools to explore the movement of electronics inside atoms and molecules, movement that occurs at extremely short timescales. Agostini, Krausz, and L'Huillier were awarded 11 million SEK ($989,495) to be shared equally.

Anne L'Huillier, professor of atomic physics at Lund University. Courtesy of Niklas Elmehed, Nobel Prize Outreach.

In 1987, L’Huillier and her colleagues at the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique in Saclay, France, fired short intense pulses from an infrared laser through a noble gas. She and her team found that they could create overtones (harmonics) with about the same light intensity. Each overtone is a lightwave with a given number of cycles for each cycle in the laser light. They are caused by the laser light interacting with atoms in the gas; it gives some electrons extra energy that is then emitted as light. L’Huillier has continued to explore this phenomenon, laying the ground for subsequent breakthroughs. Last month, she was awarded the prestigious 2023 Berthold Leibinger Zukunftspreis for her groundbreaking work.

Pierre Agostini, Emeritus Professor at The Ohio State University. Courtesy of Niklas Elmehed, Nobel Prize Outreach.

In 2001, Pierre Agostini succeeded in producing and investigating a series of consecutive light pulses, in which each pulse lasted just 250 attoseconds. At the same time, Ferenc Krausz was working with another type of experiment, one that made it possible to isolate a single light pulse that lasted 650 attoseconds.

The laureates’ contributions have enabled the investigation of processes that are so rapid they were previously impossible to follow.

Ferenc Krausz, director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and professor of experimental physics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Courtesy of Niklas Elmehed, Nobel Prize Outreach.

“We can now open the door to the world of electrons. Attosecond physics gives us the opportunity to understand mechanisms that are governed by electrons. The next step will be utilizing them,” said Eva Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

The work has potential applications in a variety of different fields. In electronics, for example, it is important to understand and control how electrons behave in a material. Attosecond pulses can also be used to identify different molecules, such as in medical diagnostics.